Cell tags are carried at visible locations on the clothing or gear of military and tactical personnel, for identification purposes. Modern cell tags utilize materials that are luminescent and heat reflective so as to be visible under low light and darkness conditions. Known cell tags typically include a call sign comprising one or more identifying symbols and/or characters for identifying the wearer as friend and foe. Representative symbols can include but are not limited to, stars, hyphens, triangles, etc.; and representative characters can include, but are not limited to, alphanumeric or typographical characters such as numbers and letters, e.g., 0-9 and A-Z.
In combat and tactical environments, soldiers and law enforcement personnel often depend on the ability to recognize each other, including to account for the location of individual members of a unit or team, and to distinguish friend from foe. Under these conditions, misidentification can be dangerous, including so as to result in serious injury and death. Distances at which identifications are made can be up to several tens or even hundreds of meters or yards, and identification can be impeded by numerous factors, including, but not limited to, relative movement between the parties, e.g., one traveling in a vehicle, low light, darkness, dusty, foggy, or rainy conditions.
Some known cell tags are of a stitched or sewn together laminated construction, and include call signs having luminescent and/or infrared reflective symbols or characters displayed through apertures in the outer layer, the surrounding edge portions of which are stitched or sewn, which makes the cell tags labor intensive to make. Also, the stitching can fail or be damaged under severe usage conditions, e.g., be torn or lost, such that symbols and characters can be difficult or impossible to read correctly, which can result in difficult or mis-identification.
It is also known to laminate cell tags using heat activated adhesives between the layers, but it has been found that this can result in damage to luminescence materials used for low light and dark conditions.
Thus, what is sought is a manner of manufacturing a cell tag incorporating a call sign requiring less labor, which cell tag will be less susceptible to damage, and possible resultant difficulty and mis-identification in use, so as to overcome one or more of the shortcomings and limitations set forth above.